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Category Archives: Bisexuality

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I have entered the land of the housewife… it’s a wild, untamed land that apparently is devoid of social rules when engaged in conversation with two lesbians.

Let me rephrase that, Cee and I went over to the house of our daughter’s friend. We had appies and wine with our daughter’s friends mom. We had a lovely time, but I couldn’t help but wonder, why the hell does the woman stare with such “blue steel” brown eyes at me? “Blue Steel” was code for I want to eat you like a sushi buffet. Was she staring at Cee the same way? Was there something on my shirt? Or… I came to the realization that this 45 year old desperate housewife was hitting on me!

The reason I didn’t come to this conclusion sooner, was that I hadn’t really been expecting to be hit on and it had been awhile since someone openly flirted with me.

As the wine was poured and appies devoured, we spoke about our lives with lively candor until deeper subjects about family and personal lives were unearthed. We touched on lighter subjects about our lives first, then more personal aspects of being LGBT. Conversation gave way to how I discovered I was gay, then of course came the three letter word that usually only adults comfortable with one another speak of. Sex.

For some reason, people who were strangers an hour ago, feel it’s ok to speak of your sex life when you fall under the LGBTQ umbrella. It’s like there’s this insatiable hunger for knowledge that people outside the umbrella don’t know – and they feel it is ok to overstep regular social constructs to get said knowledge. Oh yes… she went there.

It’s been awhile for me– having a stranger ask about my sex life — so I was slightly caught off guard. Cee seemed to handle it better. I kept to one word answers mostly. “Who goes on top?” “Who wears the strap on?” Questions hung in the air like little cartoon bubbles. Her insatiable curiosity would be obvious as to why she was asking the questions. We had a barsexual ladies and gentlemen!

She assured us she was no barsexual, that she had had a threesome (which somehow included her husband watching but not participating?-which I think would be classified as having sex with another woman and having him watch, but I could be wrong…) Bingo. This lady totally wanted to fool around with us. I was more sober than not at this point and tried to steer the conversation off the topics it had settled to.

It was flattering knowing that if, and it’s a big IF we wanted to, we could. But we politely steered the subject to more lighter topics. I mentioned to Cee we should be going as I had to work the next day. “No, no, we couldn’t stay in the spare room,” I told her. Was I growing up? Being responsible? Yes. For everyone involved.

Later, Cee told me that that sort of thing happened all the time. “What sort of thing?” I asked. “That people just see me as bisexual and assume I want to have sex with everyone.” I thought about it. That didn’t sound fair. I didn’t assume Cee would want to have sex with everyone–but then I remembered— once upon a time, I didn’t date bisexuals for that reason — because they could fall in love with anyone. A stereotype I’m glad that I have seen myself break. Just because someone identifies as bisexual, does not mean that they will sleep with anyone and everyone.

Last night, I was flattered. But this morning I was glad that I woke up next to the love of my life. That’s what matters. And if nothing else comes of this friendship with our daughter’s friends mom besides being our daughter’s friends mom, so be it. Maybe we made a friend along the way. We could always use one of those.

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People like to judge. Everyone does it, from judging what you like, to what you don’t like in food preferences, colours, hobbies and people you prefer to spend time with. People need to fit things into specific categories in order to understand them and see where they fit in our lives, this leads to us acquiring biases about things. Judgements align with these biases that we carry from a young age. Unless something occurs to an open minded individual that smashes stereotypes or their judgements, the judgements will remain; We must remain open minded about our biases, judgements and be willing to see things from different points of view in order to allow our judgements to fall to the wayside.

People who identify as LGBTQ become accustomed to feeling judged negatively and may actively fight against societal biases. One thing that some people may not know about though, is that individuals within the LGBTQ community (worldwide) fight against discrimination and judgements within the LGBTQ community. These forms of discrimination and judgement may come in words, veiled sarcasm, dirty looks etc.

For example, many lesbians or women who identify as gay and lesbian tend to hold ideas and biases against bisexual women. It is probably due to the fact that some bisexual women can date men and women happily which leads to gay women feeling the pressure about competing with straight men for the women to date. It is a lot easier for someone to be in a heterosexual relationship than in a same sex relationship, according to society. Heterosexual relationship couples do not get the odd looks, dirty looks, whispers, calls, or ignorant language. Many lesbians see it like that. I used to see things like that, worried that I would date a bisexual woman and she would break my heart and leave me for a man because that was easier than dating me.

My partner broke that mold for me. She identified as bisexual and had never dated a woman before. I had to banish my past trust issues with bisexual women and deconstruct my biases and judgements. I realized that although the gay and lesbians get discriminated against, the bisexuals get discriminated against more. My partner has been discriminated on by lesbians before at events that we’ve both attended to and now she feels left out like she doesn’t fit into the heterosexual or the gay community. I told her that’s not the case and that we will go together and leave together if such discrimination does happen to her. Our local Pride is happening this week which is why I bring this topic of events up. I told her that I support her and if she feels discriminated against, I will call said person on what they said or did and we will leave.

My girlfriend loves me for me. If she left me for a man, it would have a series of reasons attached to it, not because of my parts. Same things if I was dating a gay woman, if she left me it wouldn’t be because of my sexual parts, it would have a series of reasons attached to it. We need to move past these hangups we have in the LGBT community so we can be stronger as a united force fighting for the freedom of Human Rights.

Everyone in the LGBTQ community deserves to shine as an individual in the community that was built in order to shelter them and allow them the freedom of individuality in a world where discrimination is rampant. We need to be more aware that we’re inclusive not secluding anyone. After all, doesn’t everyone deserve freedom to be themselves in this world?

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I originally tried to deny the fact that I was attracted to women altogether for several months after finally piecing together some pieces the summer after I graduated from high school. When I went to university, I could not deny it. I had female crushes on professors, and a few of my classmates and females in my dorm. So I attached the label of bisexual to myself because I thought it would somehow be more acceptable if I did so for when I eventually came out to friends and family. I still dated boys, and crushed on girls. Guys appealed to me because I understood them, their moments of immaturity, their love of things nerdy (not as many females like nerdy things). Guys didn’t appeal to me physically, but their personalities did and that’s why I held onto that label still despite fully feeling my head spin whenever I crushed on a female.

Years later, when I decided to come out, I came out as a bisexual woman because I thought that dipping my toes in the heterosexual and homosexual world at the same time (metaphorically speaking), would somehow be more accepted than being lumped into the homosexual category. It was easier in respects to most of my friends. But it wasn’t as well thought of by my family. My family didn’t take me coming out [of any closet] very well. One of my coworkers called me a fence sitter. Uh… ouch? He was a jerk and just jealous that I wasn’t attracted to him though.

I was called me a slut by a family member. That was lovely. When I told my family I preferred women (still trying to get closer to the truth without giving up the label that I might be slightly straight), I was told “You are disgusting and you would be perfect if you weren’t gay.” I couldn’t win either way. So I finally gave up and came out fully as being a lesbian.

I don’t think some people truly understand what bisexual means. It does not mean whoring around and sleeping with everyone. Anyone can do that whether they are heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, transexual, pansexual, intersex etc. Sexual orientation does not determine if someone will be promiscuous. Unfortunately when some people think of any sexual orientation other than heterosexual they immediately think of sex and somehow think we have wild sex lives. Wouldn’t that be nice? 10 STD’s, a messed up heart and plate of drama for 1 please. *sarcasm*

So I apologize to the bisexuals out there. I did use that sexual orientation label as a metaphorical stepping stone for fully coming to terms with admitting I was gay to myself and to the world. I apologize. I didn’t mean to make it harder for those who are truly bisexual. I know that some people don’t even think that your orientation exists. That is really unfair and I’m sorry that some of you have to face that. I know that you face scrutiny from the heterosexual and homosexual sides of the sexuality spectrum. You may be scrutinized by the heterosexuals because they don’t understand why you enjoy the same sex. And the homosexuals might judge you because they think you can enjoy perks of hetero normative society while batting for the same team. That is not fair. However you love is how you love and you should be allowed that right. I mean don’t go crushing hearts for the manipulative pleasure, that’s just plain mean. But whomever you fall in love with good for you. Don’t let go.

I thought it would somehow be easier to categorize myself as such while denying the fact that I was truly gay all along and this wasn’t right of me. I let homophobia damage my self and that is never a good thing for anyone of any sexual orientation.

There are rules to being a lesbian, the main is that you date women. Seriously. That’s the rule. Once you come out, you are given a book on the rules to dating and the first rule is that you must date women. It’s like a commandment. (For those who aren’t familiar with my sense of humour, that was sarcasm.)

You may find that you have a type of woman that you prefer to date. Some lesbians prefer to date feminine women, others butch or more masculine types. I have found that I do not necessarily have “a type”. My dating history suggests that I prefer to date more feminine women than me, but I have dated and been attracted to women who identify with the feminine, masculine and everything in between type.

As a lesbian you may find you are attracted to women who are straight (gah, the dreaded straight woman-more on that in another blog post). You may also find yourself head over heels for the bisexual or bicurious women. In my mind, the bisexual woman and the bicurious woman fit into two different categories. The difference here is that the bicurious woman is exploring her sexuality and does not know what she wants but she is curious to find out and wants to experiment to see where she fits in sexual spectrum. The bisexual woman has more than likely fallen for, had sexual girl crushes, some flings or partners of both sexes.

Bisexuality is the sexual orientation that falls anywhere in between being heterosexual and homosexual. I will speak about Kinsey Theory in the future.

Being a woman who is attracted to the same sex, it can be difficult to distinguish which partners will be suitable for you. After all, being openly gay is not an easy life to lead and not every female you are attracted to will be attracted to other women. You have to come out to everyone you are close to (of course you can always choose to remain closeted in various aspects of your life); Ultimately if you want to be happy you have to come out to certain people in you life being everyone in your micro circle–ie: those who you are close to in order to feel some sense of security and fulfillment.

You have to learn and gain some sense of gaydar to filter out the women who are playing with your heart or those wishing to put on a show for their boyfriends in order to get to the women that are mutually attracted to you. Some of the women you will find a mutual attraction and connection with, may be bisexual. From my point of view, because I had relationships with women who played with my heart and then tossed me to the curb because they were going through a phase, bisexuals gained a bad rep. I knew that they either weren’t ready to come out as being bisexual or they were curious and just experimenting. I know I’m not the only lesbian to feel this way, in fact I think bisexuals gain a bad rep from the lesbians because of this common reason that they are used and then go back to being a “normal” member of society.

When I first started dating my current girlfriend, my friends said everything from, “Oh you turned her to our side”, “Is she gay?”, “Aren’t you afraid she’ll go find a man?” to “You didn’t fall for a bisexual did you?”

Ouch, I could feel the sting that my girlfriend might feel. No I did not intend to fall in love with a woman who identifies with being bisexual. The past few years I have also tried to date women who strictly identified with being strictly on the sapphic side of the rainbow because I know what it’s like falling for a woman who ultimately decides that it’s easier to be with a man in the fact that their relationship would be accepted by family and society as a whole. When my girlfriend asked how my friends reacted to hearing that I’d fallen for her, I was hesitant to tell her the truth. When I told her what some of them said, I could sense she was a bit hurt. Her response was, “Well that may be the case, but I’m also worried that you might find a woman who is better than me as well.”

That makes sense. We all have insecurities. If we let these insecurities cloud our lives, how are we going to live life to the fullest? My advice as a lesbian: Be careful with your heart, but don’t let that stop you from dating women who are bisexual. They have feelings too and as my girlfriend put it, I could always run off with another woman. Being gay means I fall for women. Being bisexual means that she has the ability to fall in love with a woman or a man, she just happened to pick me. Love is love.